Every form of competition that exists — from badminton to chess — is rife with performance-enhancing drugs. And especially among the professional ranks, you’re naïve if you think anyone can be counted as clean just because they say they are.
Not to forget that for more than a decade Lance Pharmstrong had the world convinced he was clean. Just because he’s your hero doesn’t mean he isn’t lying.
The anti-doping tests are fallible and easily fooled. There are reliable and widely-available adulterants and masking agents for everything from steroids to human grown hormone to EPO, and they guys who aren’t doping probably aren’t winning either.
And this is exactly why I'm still a Lance Armstrong fan.
All he did as -- in all actuality -- level the playing field. He just did it better than anyone else. And those tours are still the most thrilling of them all.
Armstrong's problem wasn't the drugs. He was very simply, a jerk. His teammates would have kept their mouths shut had he just been a nicer person. In the end, cycling had to take away his jerseys out of saving face. But to think that no one else competing against him wasn't doping as well is fallacy.
“The anti-doping tests are fallible and easily fooled.”
Yep. A couple weeks ago an MMA fighter was complaining about them coming to test him the morning of the weigh in, with no notice, and one of the things he said was “they never caught me”.
Not “I’m clean”, or “there’s nothing for them to find”, but “they never caught me”. That’s what he was proud of.